School Strikes Gold

Canon Peter Hall Church of England Primary School is celebrating after being the first school in North East Lincolnshire to be awarded Sport England's Activemark Gold Award.  It is just one of 119 schools to be presented with the national Activemark Gold award in recognition of its consistent efforts to keep their pupils active and fit.

Activemark is a Sport England accreditation scheme for Primary and Junior Schools that recognises and rewards a school for promoting the benefits of physical activity and for offering good quality physical activity provision.  The award provides schools with a thorough auditing and development tool that will help to continually raise the standard of physical activity provision.

To gain the gold award, Canon Peter Hall Primary School worked closely with the Councils Sports Development Unit.  The School not only met the criteria, they showed they were highly committed to providing excellent PE and Sport opportunities to pupils within and beyond the curriculum.  They also demonstrated a commitment to further improvements and that the whole school environment and resources are used to promote physical activity.

Councillor Geoff Lowis, portfolio holder of Regeneration and Community Learning and Councillor Jim Tattersdale, portfolio holder of Education said; "We are delighted for the school in achieving this Award.  The fitness and health of our young people is very important and this is another example of how the Sports Development Unit is working in partnership with our schools to ensure that our future generations are fit and healthy."

Physical activity plays a big part of every school day.  All pupils are encouraged to walk to and from school - and most do.  Sports and games equipment is available for children at break and lunchtimes so they can play games and be active.  The lunchtime supervisors have been trained to organise games with the children so they can encourage all pupils to get involved in activities and teach them traditional playground games. 

The majority of classes receive two hours of PE each week, which is above the 90 minutes recommended by the government.  Once lessons have finished for the day, all pupils are able to attend after school clubs for several sports.  All clubs offered are highly attended.

All of the above, along with the school having the Healthy School Standard, shows their commitment to delivering high quality PE and Sport. 
 
Angie Burnett, School Sports Development Officer, who helped the school complete their application said:  "Canon Peter Hall Primary School is dedicated to providing the best PE and Sports provision possible.  To gain an Activemark Gold award, a school has to have a great deal of activity in place.  They have to meet strict criteria and provide a lot of background information.  The school has managed to do all of this as a newly formed Primary school, which makes this achievement even more outstanding." 

For further information about the Activemark and Activemark Gold award, please contact Angie Burnett at the Sports Development Unit on: 01472 323385.

24 March 2004

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